Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1949)

-now woaderfal for YOU ! Stopette Deodoraat s|)iiyi away uaderarm odor R M 80 No messy fingers You never touch Stopette . . . hardly know it touches you Just squeeze the flexible bottle . . . Stopette envelops underarm in cool deodorant mist, banishes odor and perspiration worries. You have never used a deodorant so delicate, yet so effeaive. Stopette is invisible, dries the instant you spray it on, leaves no trace on skin or clothes. Composed of kind-to-your-skin ingredients ... assures the firm yet gentle protection you must have. The squeezable bottle is unbreakablecarry it anywhere. So economical, too — hundreds of sprays in each bottle. Your favorite drug or cosmetic counter has Stopette. Try it once . . . you will x-SSi"' °!a!"''«»o?^ never use another deodorant. /v Guaranteed bv 'A _. _ ^Good Housekeeping ) •""■^S MONTENIER, INC. '^J2«-m.,,«mS>^ CHICAGO living room five months of the year and a wonderful place for picnic buffets. Regular daily meals in the Shidler household are simple. Waffles are a Sunday treat, popovers and spinach souffle are among Rosemary's specialties. She's the every-other-Sunday cook, when Jo is off. Rosemary keeps her "city" clothes for days away from home, wears colorful slacks, shirts and jackets around the house. "John's even more addicted to casual clothes," she says. "Being a judge, he's often caught in informal garb on Sunday by some desiring-tobe-wed couple, but when enough notice is given lie dresses with all the proper formality for the occasion." John is interested in everything from community affairs to boys' Bible classes. Rosemary's radio and movie work, combined with home and children, keep her out of everything except the big annual bridge tournament that husbands and wives of the community play against the husbands and wives of a nearby hill town. "You never play with the same people twice, which makes it interesting — and the food is wonderful," is Rosemary's reason for always entering the tournaments. How she got into radio and the movies is a story in itself, of course. It really started because Rosemary's mother is one of those always-finishit girls, and consequently Rosemary can't quit anything she starts, whether it's a foolish book or a poor meal — and certainly not the quest for a movie or radio part. Mama taught her too well. People are always asking Rosemary how they can get on the air. "A," she tells them, "make a list of jobs to be had. B, people who can give them out. And C, start sitting on benches and pestering B to give you A. If you work at it hard enough you'll win, and the more you work the more proficient you'll get." She got to be "Judy Price" that way. A, she found there was a job to be had on the Dr. Christian airshow. B, she got the name of the job-giver. C, she auditioned for three days, brought her lunch every day and outstayed all comers. Somewhere there must have been a D too; she had what it takes. Rosemary's been Judy for twelve years, except for the three maternity leaves. "It always seems strange to be paid, when it's so much fun," she tells you, then adds, "Dear, dear, let's not be too naive about this!" When River's End and its folks go on television she wants to go along, because she thinks Dr. Jean HersholtChristian is the kindest, most generous, most humorous person she could work with — "and nobody's fool, in spite of these things," she adds. Plenty of girls would have envied Rosemary's early life. She was born in Prescott, Arizona, but her father was a mining engineer and the only thing she could count on was change. Her formal schooling began much later than other girls', and when she did get started she changed schools every year. Either the family moved, or she had to be shipped off somewhere to get an education. She used to wonder what it was like to grow up in a house you were born in and see the same faces for at least twelve months at a stretch. Now she knows that this nomadic life made her more understanding of differing customs and ways of living and left her in the permanent dilemma of being able to see the other fellow's point of view, even when completely contrary to her own. Therefore she can't be too tough on anyone — which is sometimes tough on Rosemary. It also made her more adept at meeting new people, although she insists that's a surface facility and that she's really still the shy ten-year-old who was brought up alone and suddenly sent out to face a world of strange schools and stranger grownups. Shy she may have been at ten, but already she had seen mine tragedies, disastrous fires and even killings in the border towns and mining camps that were her early homes. Maybe it was seeing all this pain and sickness that made her want to be a doctor — and even now makes her read every medical treatise she can make head or tail of. She can't bear to see anything, human or animal, suffer and tortures herself with theories about ways to help. Doctor Christian has competition in his own office! Oddly enough, she flunked her first screen test, which was for the role of Judy Price in a film based on the radio show. Persistence didn't pay off in that case. "You're not the type," they told her. Some Hollywood agents had warned her she'd lose by a nose. Like Rosemary, her nose has individuality^but while not as photogenic as, say, Bergman's, it has led her into twenty-six movie roles to date, the latest being Ma Miller in Warners' "Look for the Silver Lining," based on the life of dancer Marilyn Miller. She's just started a movie version of the Bill Bendix radio show, The Life of Riley. She's played screen mother to such diverse children as June Haver, who portrays Marilyn; to Sabu, Jimmy Cagney, Bobby DriscoU, Ronald Reagan, Ann Blyth and Robert Alda. On the air she has done something like four hundred different characters, from the Columbia Workshop to Gangbusters. Character roles started for her at fourteen, when she played in stock. Smaller parts were usually older women and she got used to padding and gray wigs. Once she did Mercutio and lost half her mustache in the vehemence of her performance. She majored in drama and psychology at Mills College, in Oakland, California, got her Master's Degree after a year of post-graduate teaching there. She acted on radio, screen and stage, once did reviews for the New York Morning Telegraph, was fired for telling the editor not to cut her stuff. "It took me some time to get over the notion that I was sent from heaven to aid the arts," she confesses. Rosemary had been fired from her first radio job, on One Man's Family in 1934, because she couldn't resist telling the boss how to run the show. They hadn't been enthusiastic over her audition, but next day someone broke a leg — a break for Rosemary, because she was the substitute. Six weeks later she was bossing the boss. So she had to move on — this time to the Pasadena Playhouse. But the role she liked best was Mad Agnes in "The Drunkard," in a mad tour that took her all over the country and landed her in New York and a part in "Merrily We Roll Along." She worked her way up to a small speaking role — and the show closed. Not cause and effect, she insists. She got into the movies because actress Martha Scott fought for her until it was easier to put up with Rosemary than it was with Martha. Martha looked utDon her as a com